


Tangled

by ndnickerson



Category: Nancy Drew - Keene
Genre: Angst, F/M, Nancy Drew Files, Post-Canon, Romance, Rough Sex, Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-29
Updated: 2009-12-29
Packaged: 2017-10-05 11:45:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/41421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ndnickerson/pseuds/ndnickerson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She doesn't use the word "need."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tangled

She calls at quarter to four on a Sunday afternoon, says she needs to see him, and he says sure, managing to keep his voice calm, although Nancy doesn't use the word "need." Need implies something he won't want to hear.

When Ned answers the door, the apartment is almost eerily quiet around them. He's been fidgeting, since. Picking things up and putting them down like through sheer force of feng shui, he can head off whatever this is.

She's wearing an old cardigan, half-buttoned, heels of her hands tucked into its sleeves, and only meets his gaze in the briefest of glances as she slides past him.

She lingers beside his couch, brushing her fingertips over the arm, not sitting. "He's not here," Ned says, his voice sounding rougher than he intended; a muted red flush spreads up the back of her neck as she nods a little.

"I need to know we're going somewhere."

Her eyes flash up at him. He almost answers _Why?_, but that will only earn him a lie. She looks like she's been crying; it's something in how very startling her eyes are, how pale the flesh beneath them is, the slight catch in every breath she takes.

"We are if you want us to be," he answers, because that sounds very safe. She works the buttons free, shrugging open the sweater, ends frayed like a security blanket. She's feeling vulnerable.

He knows why. He doesn't want to know why.

"I thought I was fine with this," she says, not looking at him. "I guess I was wrong."

For a second he hears what she isn't saying, and the pain is intense, staggering. But she hasn't said it, out loud, not yet, and all he has to do is head it off, make sure she doesn't reach the end of this. Not again.

He kisses her, slow, as dusk falls, his hands seeking the warmth of bare skin. "If you're here," he begins, but the rest of it is too terrible to say.

She bites her lower lip when he unzips her fly.

He doesn't carry her; that would be worse. He grasps her hips and angles her body up against his, claiming her mouth roughly, nuzzling her cheek, lips glancing along her jaw. She doesn't say anything, doesn't cry off with guilt or shame in her eyes, and for that he's thankful, but he still doesn't carry her. His hand brushes hers as he walks back to his bedroom, in the stillness as the lights fall.

When she stands in his doorway, the light framing her turns her to indistinguishable silhouette. "I didn't," she murmurs. "I wanted to, but I didn't." She glances down, her hair obscuring her face. "I don't know why I always feel like I have to tell you. It never makes me feel better. Just makes me feel like shit."

"That makes two of us."

She opens her mouth again but he puts his thumb over her lips, shakes his head very slightly. Even so, he breathes her in, the faint perfume of her hair, the barest tang of sweat and her arousal. When her teeth graze his neck he thinks he smells cigarettes, but then it's gone.

He knows that she's lying, about the minor transgression of a kiss or the major transgression of that certain name he won't even let himself think (but he does, in a quick hiss, _FrankHardy_, and sees the two of them entwined, so comfortable it makes his blood boil). He traces delicate palms over her skin, seeking bruises, teethmarks, signs, but finds only his own.

When they fuck it's just that, and it's not that he doesn't feel enough, it's that he feels too much. He rips her panties; he slides four fingers into her cunt and strokes her until she tries to squirm away from him, panting out his name. When she's arched, hips pushing in answer, he drags her to the edge of the mattress and stands, angling her so that when he drives hard, brutally, his cock is buried deep between her pale open thighs, and she's perched on her elbows, rocking forward to meet his thrusts, crying out for more, and much as he tries to beat her, he loses himself, groaning her name as her wet flesh tightens around him, urging his own wave of release.

She sinks back, limp, and he pushes forward, her thighs cradling his hips, her eyes closed.

"We are, Nan."

She blinks up at him and her lips part, as his cock pulses inside her one last time, but then the moment has passed and she's merely flushed and sated, languorous under him.

"Yeah," she murmurs. "We are."


End file.
